After last week's floods and landslides, telecom services have returned to Chamba, Kullu, and Lahaul-Spiti, with more than half of the damaged sites having been restored.

In the districts of Chamba, Kullu, and Lahaul-Spiti, about 65% of the telecommunications sites that were damaged by last week's intense rain, landslides, and flash floods have been restored to operation, an official stated on Wednesday.

According to a statement from Gokul Butail, Principal Advisor, Information Technology and Innovation to Chief Minister Himachal Pradesh, the districts' telecommunications networks sustained significant damage on August 25 and 26.

Only 374 of the 1761 sites run by Airtel, Reliance Jio, BSNL, and Vodafone Idea in the Chamba region were still down as of September 2, according to a statement from Butail. As of August 27, 1155 sites were down as well.

About 85% of the 877 Airtel telecom sites in the Kullu district are now operational, whilst 65% of the 1173 Reliance Jio telecom sites are operating without any issues, according to Butail. He went on to say that around 20% of telecom services are operating regularly across the 391 BSNL facilities.

Butail stated that the state government's top priority is the restoration of telecom services, noting that 96.8% of the 63 Airtel sites in the Lahaul-Spiti area were rendered operational and 84.1% of the 170 Reliance Jio Service sites were operating without any issues.